No preamble needed for this week’s retro ad. If you’ve seen the running t.v. and print spots for Snickers’ “Hungry” campaign over the past number of years, a pitch using the mighty Godzilla should’ve been the first de facto choice.

Though I never imagined the King of the Monsters would be quad runnin’ instead of tackling skyscrapers and enemy kaiju with a peanut and nougat reward as his pacification. I love it.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Word.

Truth be told, I came up with this feature idea a day late, so I appreciate your patience and hope the silky soul of The Spinners hits a smooth chord with you. Sounds from my childhood I heavily anticipate whenever I have Smokey’s Soul Town rolling on Sirius XM.

Here they’re performing with live vocals to the original song mix on the old Midnight Special t.v. show. Would SOMEONE please have the stones to revive a traditional music variety program?

The only person who can tell you you can’t is you. Don’t be that person.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

–Arnold Schwarzenegger, Conan the Barbarian, 1982 – photo courtesy of the public domain

I was only 9 when The Warriors came out in theaters in 1979, so it took me to my mid-teens before I finally caught up to the cult classic urban action flick. It was one of those impactful movies, like A Clockwork Orange and Blue Velvet, which hit me hard once I saw it.

Now I’m not going to say The Warriors is cinematic art like those aforementioned fringe films, each speaking of psychosomatic sexual tension and violence. Yet any teenager coming to The Warriors at the right time of his or her life is wont to have a game-changing experience in attitude. Teenagers are pull of piss and vinegar, full of themselves, carrying supercilious airs like they’ve already figured out the world and their parents were wrong about more than half of what they’d preached. The Warriors puts you in your self-righteous adolescent place.

Directed by Walter Hill, based on the 1965 novel by Sol Yurick and stuffed with a dirty funk and rock soundtrack I love and play often (including the gritty shuffle-stomp of Barry De Vorzon’s movie theme and Joe Walsh of The Eagles’ modest hit, “In the City”). The premise of the film was a de facto warning against gang culture, lost in translation between the gangsta huckstering eras of Dr. Dre and 21 Savage. A well-meaning gang leader, Cyrus, with the power to unite all of New York City’s (at the time this was made in economic despair, culling the unwanted tag “The Rotten Apple”) street packs under one tribe is assassinated then mistakenly pinned upon our focus horde, The Warriors.

Turf means nothing at this point, as The Warriors, homebased at Coney Island, must fight their way home from Van Cortlandt Park through New York’s subterranean and top-level hellholes from 96th Street to Union Square and beyond from rival gangs looking to bash them to pieces. It’s a savage, goony brawl to the finish against comic-reminiscent adversaries like The Gramercy Riffs (who have propagated a bounty upon The Warriors), The Turnbull ACs and The Orphans. The most famous gangs here being the all-female “Lizzies” and the pinstriped, face-painted, bat-wielding “Baseball Furies.” Michael Beck as Swan and James Remar as Ajax are The Warriors’ face men, and they’re not always in the right, which makes The Warriors that much more compelling. You’re inexplicably cheering for street trash, even with their ugly faults and sometimes piggish conduct, even as the aggrieved characters in this film. The final showdown against The Rogues gang who’ve set The Warriors up, is a memorable, bottle clinking denouement that works your nerves and sets in to the sun washed we-made-it-thank-God ending.

Upon its inaugural weekend release, The Warriors inadvertently incited reports of street violence, vandalism and three murders, two in California, one in Boston. The film and radio ads were ripped from the airwaves and extra security was hired across numerous American theaters. I hear some of today’s generation praise The Warriors but most of them consider it soft soap and cheesy in comparison to today’s spirit of nihilism in filmmaking. There were reports of theaters so crowded for The Warriors in ’79 people were lying on the floors to watch it.

Make no doubt about it; The Warriors is tame by today’s standards, yet it was a very dangerous film of its time, and it still has the capability of stirring insurrection to the right audience. A board game called Warriors: Come Out to Play surfaced as recently as 2022 by Funko. Dynamite Comics ran a four-issue miniseries dedicated to the film back in 2013. John Wick 4 has a blatant homage to the DJ in this film calling underground thugs to action, including a remake of “Nowhere to Run,” already covered by Arnold McCuller here. In other words, The Warriors has mucho holding power all these years later.

Walter Hill himself said of his film, “I think the reason why there were some violent incidents is really very simple: The movie was very popular with the street gangs, especially young men, a lot of whom had very strong feelings about each other. And suddenly they all went to the movies together! They looked across the aisle and there were the guys they didn’t like, so there were a lot of incidents. And also, the movie itself is rambunctious—I would certainly say that.”

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

In overdue response toa friend’s groovy post soliciting favorite film and t.v. soundtracks and scores. I have a couple hundred and they serve as fuel to my writing. I am either writing in silence or with a score rolling. These are a lot of my heavy hitters with a heavy lean of Goldsmith, Williams, Elfman, Carpenter, Zimmer, North, Goblin and Junkie XL. A big oops for not putting in Ennio Morricone’s “Dollars Trilogy,” for Clint Eastwood’s spaghetti western epics.

Currently writing to the spooky chill of Lalo Schierin’s haunting masterpiece behind the original Amityville Horror with Basil Poledouris’ enthralling wizardry for the first Conan the Barbarian on deck. Wind is HOWLING outside the office window right now. The perfect ambience for creating horror.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

Yesterday we drove two hours to Dover, Delaware for the Kent County Library’s Author Showcase.

My wife killed it yet again in sales, and I moved a handful of books and a lot of bookmarkers. This thing had a large turnout and the best part to doing these signings is meeting the people. Total blast chatting with some of the fellow authors and getting to know patrons who were friendly, encouraging and fun. Kelly, Mike, Jill, Mark, Tim, Anna and Nicole, enjoyed your camaraderie and support.

Special thanks to Phoenix, who was a spectacular host of the event and props to the Kent County Library for passing out free eclipse viewing glasses for today’s total eclipse event!

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.

If you grew in the 1970s, what wasn’t cooler than gold belt buckles, stripe patterned shirts, comic books and Hubba Bubba bubble gum?

Sure, Fruit Stripe was okay, if a little chalky. If you liked chalk in your gum, all needed do was buy a pack of Fleer or Donruss baseball cards, during the waning years of trading cards coming with a gnaw-on treat. Topps at least had a palatable stick of gum in their card packs. Fleet or Donruss, it’s amazing we even lived eating that nasty crap.

Big Red chewing gum carried a fun, zesty cinnamon zing on the palette, while Fruitalicious and Bubble Yum were hot contenders vying for our gnawing pleasure back then. Hubba Bubba, I mean, dude, the name sold itself. The fact it had the best reputation for bubble blowing elasticity was the reason to care. It was also on par with Bubble Yum and the tried-and-true Bazooka for the quickest sugar rush.

I was reading through a few of my classic Iron Man, Captain America and Spiderman comics and rejoiced to spot the above ad for Hubba Bubba repeated in the issues from 1979. Hubba Bubba used to air t.v. ads featuring kids as “Gumfighters” in an old West setting throwing down against Black Barts of gum chewing, nonsensical giddiness which were effective in their pitches. We wanted this stuff to get in there amongst our friends to duel in bubble blowing.

Here in print form, a hilarious tutorial on the fine art of “Gumfighting” or as I called it then, “Gumslinging.” Best of all with Hubba Bubba, they’d found the science of non-stick retraction! All-important to a child of the Swinging Seventies’ gumslinging forte.

Yo, those people talking smack about you, especially behind your back…they don’t matter. They never did matter. Play your game with all the integrity you can pull forward. Stay strong. Stay clear of mind. Dispel negativity. Show everyone, including the haters, ESPECIALLY the haters, your best you at all times. Above all, BELIEVE.